Classifications

• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B07—SEPARATING SOLIDS FROM SOLIDS; SORTING
  • B07C—POSTAL SORTING; SORTING INDIVIDUAL ARTICLES, OR BULK MATERIAL FIT TO BE SORTED PIECE-MEAL, e.g. BY PICKING
  • B07C5/00—Sorting according to a characteristic or feature of the articles or material being sorted, e.g. by control effected by devices which detect or measure such characteristic or feature; Sorting by manually actuated devices, e.g. switches
  • B07C5/36—Sorting apparatus characterised by the means used for distribution
  • B07C5/38—Collecting or arranging articles in groups
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G01—MEASURING; TESTING
  • G01G—WEIGHING
  • G01G19/00—Weighing apparatus or methods adapted for special purposes not provided for in the preceding groups
  • G01G19/22—Weighing apparatus or methods adapted for special purposes not provided for in the preceding groups for apportioning materials by weighing prior to mixing them
  • G01G19/24—Weighing apparatus or methods adapted for special purposes not provided for in the preceding groups for apportioning materials by weighing prior to mixing them using a single weighing apparatus
  • G01G19/30—Weighing apparatus or methods adapted for special purposes not provided for in the preceding groups for apportioning materials by weighing prior to mixing them using a single weighing apparatus having electrical weight-sensitive devices

Definitions

• the present invention relates to weighing, batching, and packaging of articles for the food industry.
• articles are sold in batches satisfying various constraints.
• articles of non-uniform size, shape or weight e.g. food articles such as meat, fish, fruit and vegetables
• a batch of articles must fulfill requirements defined by a contract between a delivering and a receiving party, and most often, minimum weight of the batch is a key issue.
• the part of the batch that exceeds the minimum weight is considered by the delivering part as a loss and is often referred to as "giveaway", "overweight” or "over-pack”.
• the complexity of this task is further increased when there are multiple criteria such as weight and color, weight and size grouping, or weight, color and size grouping, for instance.
• batches are formed by weighing the articles individually, e.g. as they are moved by a conveyer system across a dynamic scale.
• the weight of each item is compared with weights of a plurality of receptacles, e.g. bins wherein batches are formed.
• the computer system uses statistical algorithms for assigning specific articles to specific bins under consideration of required minimum weight of the batch and a desire not to produce batches with more overweight, i.e. giveaway, than required under the present conditions, i.e. given the weights of the articles and the required minimum weight of the batches.
• criteria to meet such as size grouping, batching and grading; processes are usually cascaded together requiring large facilities to house the batching lines. Disclosure of Invention
• the invention in a first aspect provides an apparatus for grading and batching of articles, said apparatus comprising:
• batch buffers each, further comprising :
• said computing system is adapted to keep track of all electronic tags attached to each article.
• the apparatus consists of an in-feed station for grading of the articles into multiple "quality classes".
• the articles of each of the classes are weighted by one of multiple weighing means provided. After being weighted the articles are transported in transport buckets via vertically oriented carousel conveying means.
• the ability to attach multiple electronic tags or labels to each of the articles makes it possible to keep track of each of the articles and allocate them according to class and weight tags into the correct batching buffer.
• a vertically oriented carousel conveyor for transferring the articles from the weighing means consists of a base member, with four sprockets, fastened to the base in a rectangular fashion forming two horizontal and two vertical segments.
• An endless supporting means is mounted on the four sprockets, and a drive means acting on one of the sprockets powers the carousel.
• Plurality of transport buckets are suspended from the support means using pivoting mechanism such that the transport buckets maintain substantially same position as they are transported by the carousel, through any of the vertical or horizontal segments.
• the batching buffers are located in between the two horizontal segments and consists of one ore more batching buckets which collect the batch. In the case when three vertically stacked batching buckets are used, each capable of receiving Vz batch, the batching buffer can be used continuously.
• the top most batching bucket has received the first Vz batch in a batch
• the first Vz batch is dropped into the middle bucket where the Vz batch is stored.
• the top most bucket has received the second Vz batch
• the first Vz batch is dropped from the middle bucket to the bottom most bucket and the second Vz batch is dropped into the middle bucket, and the top most bucket can now start to receive the first Vz of the next batch.
• a computer system is used to control: the conveying means, the transport buckets, the batching buffer, the batch transfer buffer, the collecting buffer, and to keep track of the different electronic tags.
• the computing system may consist of conventional hardware such as PC computer adapted to for use in the above described system.
• custom made computing system composed of: central processing unit, random access memory, non-volatile memory storage, and other necessary components and interconnects. Regardless of what computing system is used, input modules and output modules, are needed as well as program code which encodes computer executable instructions which when loaded into memory and executed by the central processing unit controls the entire system via the output modules according to the input signals and the algorithms embedded in the program code.
• the invention provides a method for grading and batching of articles, said method comprising steps of:
• Figure 1 shows side view of the apparatus for grading and batching.
• Figures 2 - 5 shows four different configurations of the in-feed station.
• the apparatus consists of an in-feed station for grading of the articles into multiple "quality classes".
• the articles of each of the classes are weighted by one of multiple weighing means provided.
• the ability to attach multiple electronic tags or labels to each of the articles makes it possible to keep track of each of the articles and allocate them according to class and weight tags into the correct batching buffer. After being weighted the articles are transported in transport buckets via vertically oriented carousel conveying means.
• the carousel consists of a base member, with four sprockets, (11), (12), (13), (14), fastened to the base in a rectangular fashion; the sprocket (11) being the top-left sprocket, (12) the top-right sprocket, (13) the bottom-right sprocket and (14) the bottom-left sprocket.
• An endless supporting means mounted on the four sprockets, and a drive means acting on one of the sprockets.
• a plurality of transport buckets are suspended from the support means using pivoting mechanism such that said transport buckets maintain substantially same position as they are transported by the carousel, through the upper horizontal segment from sprocket (11) to sprocket (12), through the first vertical segment from sprocket (12) to sprocket (13), through the lower horizontal segment from sprocket (13) to sprocket (14), and through the second vertical segment from sprocket (14) to sprocket (11).
• the carousel consists of a base member, with two sprockets, (11), (12), fastened to the base; the sprocket (11) being the left most sprocket, (12) the right most sprocket.
• An endless supporting means mounted on the two sprockets, and a drive means acting on one of the sprockets.
• a plurality of transport buckets are suspended from the support means using pivoting mechanism such that said transport buckets maintain substantially same position as they are transported by the carousel, through the upper horizontal segment from sprocket (11) to sprocket (12), and through the lower horizontal segment from sprocket (12) to sprocket (11).
• the batching buffers are located in between the Horizontal segments and consists of one ore more batching buckets which collect the batch. In the case when three vertically stacked batching buckets are used, each capable of receiving 1 Z- batch, the batching buffer can be used continuously.
• the top most batching bucket When the top most batching bucket has received the first Vi batch in a batch, the first 1 Z- batch is dropped into the middle bucket where the Vz batch is stored. As soon as the bottom most bucket becomes available the 1 A batch is released from the middle batching bucket into the bottom most batching bucket. When the top most bucket has received the second 1 A batch the entire batch is released from the middle and bottom most batching bucket into the batch transfer buffer (7) which is composed of one or more transport buckets (4),
• the transport buckets are used twice: Firstly, to transport individual articles to the batching buffers and secondly, to transport entire batch to the collecting buffer.
• a computer system is used to control: the conveying means, the transport buckets, the batching buffer, the batch transfer buffer, the collecting buffer, and to keep track of the different electronic tags.
• the computing system may consist of conventional hardware such as PC computer adapted to for use in the above described system.
• custom made computing system composed of: central processing unit, random access memory, non-volatile memory storage, and other necessary components and interconnects. Regardless of what computing system is used, input modules and output modules, are needed as well as program code which encodes computer executable instructions which when loaded into memory and executed by the central processing unit controls the entire system via the output modules according to the input signals and the algorithms embedded in the program code.

Landscapes

• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• General Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Sorting Of Articles (AREA)
• Branching, Merging, And Special Transfer Between Conveyors (AREA)
• Stacking Of Articles And Auxiliary Devices (AREA)
• Auxiliary Devices For And Details Of Packaging Control (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (2)

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Family Applications (1)

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• 2006
  • 2006-04-04 CA CA2601833A patent/CA2601833C/fr not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2006-04-04 US US11/887,757 patent/US20090301940A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2006-04-04 EP EP06711376A patent/EP1896196B1/fr not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2006-04-04 DK DK06711376.1T patent/DK1896196T3/da active
  • 2006-04-04 DE DE602006018603T patent/DE602006018603D1/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2006-04-04 WO PCT/IS2006/000008 patent/WO2006106532A1/fr not_active Ceased
  • 2006-04-04 AT AT06711376T patent/ATE490030T1/de not_active IP Right Cessation
• 2007
  • 2007-10-16 NO NO20075286A patent/NO337001B1/no not_active IP Right Cessation

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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